The 6th Ministry's Secret: A Summoner's Guide (v2)

I've heard a few people getting them, very few. I'd say you're lucky. I want one :)

I dislike it personally, I don't like them giving out items from some of the hardest stuff.

But you did?

Well, Draylo just played it out like it happens often. If it doesn't, then awesome. :)

It *does* happen, you're not the first of course.
It's still a very rare thing to happen though.
Throughout all these campaigns (there have been plenty over the last year) and 6 total characters I've never seen any like that, for instance.

Random thought of the day:

Goddamn we need a cape with refresh that isn't poisontasters.

Take it easy there, dude. You'll get your afterglow soon enough. :S

How about some new belt options with refresh.

I quite like full timing my pet level +1 cape

Looking forward to the ramp up to a claustrum and hver next. Or gearing indy. I cant decide. Indy will cost me 600m easy, claustrum is gonna be about 200m and hver prob. 400.

I've been looking at Claustrum myself actually. I have room for 1-2 more projects while finishing up my RNG update.

Getting indy done would mean being sole duo dps on at least two helm nms, and in general would be useful to have.... but i can't help myself when it comes to useless expensive as *** lockstyle pieces.

Anyone want to buy a blurred staff +1?

What exactly does summoner DO now? What's it's role? What are it's strengths?

Back in the day it solod really well, astral flowed certain boss fights, astral flow burned lowbies, or main healed leveling(lol). It was an OK super safe no enmity DD on a bunch of bosses as well.

Post abyssea pre adoulin it pressed alexander.

It's a hybrid damage dealer/support job/nuker that can provide unique buffs and utility, as well as deal great damage under the right conditions. Combining the damage and support together, they can be a valuable asset to many parties.

They cannot provide buffs to the level of something like Corsair or Geomancer, but they do have their own unique buffs that can be quite useful (Hastega II, TP Bonus, Warcry, Favor). They generally cannot do as much DPS as a standard DD job or nuker, but can be devastating with the right support and conditions. They can solo well just as any pet job can.

Summoner does require a certain amount of gear and has a large chance of being a wasted party slot if not utilized properly, and thus generally people only bring them with a certain idea in mind, or if they are very geared. Without a certain amount of equipment, Summoner's effectiveness is drastically cut and it can be very weak.

It also does take a bit of effort in a party compared to something like Geomancer to earn your spot and actually be worth having in the party. While something like Geomancer can use its two buff spells and most people will be fine with it doing nothing else, Summoner needs to be able to utilize its many blood pacts to support the party in a variety of different ways, while managing their favor and dealing as much damage as possible. Being able to understand what the party needs and the attributes of the enemy is important to be able to utilize it to the fullest.

Crevox pretty much nailed it, though I'd say as a support/favor SMN or just one shotting fodder in reisenjima with flaming crush the requirements to do either of those are far less. Haste II, EA, Tp Bonus and backup healing is enough to be very valuable in VD Avatar fights (for gil) and if you have your bp delay capped and a decent ward set you can stun lock Tenzen on SMN drastically reducing the time it takes to kill him. With the right support, and decent gear you can also start seeing occassional 99,999 damages on lower level eschan mobs with ifrit. Support being BST roll, PUP roll, Blaze of Glory Ecliptic Geo-Frailty, indi-malaise, dia 2. I've seen even NQ SMN with no nirvana get 99k dmg on say, t1 sky mobs that way. Nirvana SMN with gear to back it up can do 99k every time, or achieve it with less support. With apogee up, Summoner can use Shattersoul -> Flaming Crush -> Flaming Crush and kill most t1 and t2 escha mobs straight out with support. The higher tier you go though the less effective it gets, to the point it's not even use worth Flaming Crush vs other options on higher level content.

SMN is also a great add to any Apex party, their magic bursts will always be the first to hit 99,999 given the right support and gear. I'd say there's better soloers in this game than pet jobs because BLU exists and does the solo's pet jobs used to in 1/10th of the time :( Also any mobs that can one shot avatars are pretty challenging to solo and not worth the time usually, or just flat out not doable, which goes for pretty much very single BCNM on Very Difficult.

I wrote an informational post on how to make the most of buffs for summoner here:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/49650/how-is-smn-these-days/#3169825

You can read about favor effects here, they're basically a single COR roll with less options that you get for free while having an avatar out: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Avatar%27s_Favor

We also get some nice debuffs, Ifrit's Burn from Conflag strike is a huge 62 INT down and Impact from Fenrir stacks with it for around 95 INT total down and about 33 down to all other stats. Outside that, to make hard fights easier SMN can astral flow + astral conduit and do a ton of spike damage either physical or magical, the draw back is being once again valued around our 1 hour abilities like we were with Alex it can make some things a lot easier though so worth optimizing as a SMN.

SMN's do mean things to this months Intense VD Froggy.

Just saying...

With Volt Strike or something? I don't see any weakness on this NM for Summoner compared to any other job (any DD).

The only benefit I see is safety, which is completely unneeded with Gravity.

Mostly Volt Strike. 50% or more of the Frog's HP can be taken from a well-geared Conduit alone in Intense VD if you have an "ohshi" moment.

I don't see that as very strong, personally.

Summoner is actually very weak for this month's Ambuscade, because clear times are way higher with another actual DD using the Gravity strategy. Our damage dealing capability is at its best with magic damage, and mr. frog shrugs it off easily.

You're right in that they can potentially save the day in an emergency, but that should never happen, and never has in any of my runs; I don't see the worth in it. You could use that logic for a lot of fights in the game, but it still doesn't mean SMN is worth it over an actual DD for that reason. Outside of this emergency potential save, you're lucky to get 2 damaging BP's off, in which case you'd account for like 5% of the damage dealt to the frog. This also means using Ramuh, which is potentially a worse favor than Ifrit, to do a marginal amount of damage instead of buffing the DDs. I could kind of see our support being useful, but it's still weaker than a Corsair or another DD.

All in all it comes down to: the fight is too short, and he has too much resistance to magic damage, and our utility is not needed. We do not shine here, in my opinion.

Are we on the same server? SMN + Tank has been a viable strategy since the event released. Sure, it's not as fast as DD zerg but it's well known by now. And this isn't even counting SMN's involvement in a DD set up.

There's no "potentially" about it. SMN can and has turned a potential DD wipe into a win by coming in and finishing off the Frog. Whether this or that should or shouldn't happen is irrelevant. ***can and does happen in Intense VD.

Yeah, I joined a couple SMN burns. The fights took much longer and there were cases where Quenching Hammer killed everyone and wasted even more time. Yeah, they can join a DD setup, but like I said... there's little reason.

I have opted out of them since then.


If the frog is handled properly with Gravity by the tank, nothing will go wrong. I have done runs for hours with zero Quenching Hammers. Generally, you do not take a job solely for the case of something going very very wrong, especially for something like the 1 hour ability on content you can clear every few minutes. Even then, you'd be better off taking another DD so the frog will die faster, which lowers the chance of something like that happening, especially because this gets it to Chainspell phase faster (when he stops moving and decides to stand and die).

All just my opinion, of course. :)

the way i've been handling runs is if i've got 3 even DDs, they get Hastega 2 and ramuh's favor as i volt strike ~3-4 times.

If i have uneven DDs and someone is constantly pulling hate and wiping us, i give them a cytherea pearl and swap to Carby for pacifying ruby after their WSes. this has saved me numerous times.

The majority of groups I've joined have only had BLU, and in those cases Hastega II does nothing. If there aren't BLU, the GEO should be using Indi-Haste and haste would be capped; the only reason they usually don't is because it's all BLU with Erratic Flutter. They use Indi-DEX in those cases. You could say that using Hastega II allows the GEO to use Indi-DEX, but... I don't think this is a very large gain at all. It's more so "there's nothing else better." This is especially true because if you're using Hastega II, it means there's something other than a BLU, and if that's the case, there's a high chance they don't benefit from the DEX for their weaponskills.

If someone is pulling aggro, it's more so the tank's fault than the DD's. Definitely a solveable problem a few different ways without hurting your contribution by using Pacifying Ruby. 3-4 Volt Strikes sounds like a much longer fight than it should be, because even without REM, the frog dies very quickly.

Take a COR, SMN x3, RDM, tank.

COR Beast Roll, doesn't have to bother with a 2nd roll though could tact roll and smn could use garland of bliss.
RDM ES Gravity II and Dia III.
Tank flashes and kites.
All three SMN use kusamochi food, apogee -> Volt strike x2. After this COR uses Random Deal. Repeat. that's 12 volt strikes in about 5 seconds, which is more spike damage than DD can put out and would probably kill it if it didn't you'd wait another 20s for another 3 volt strikes or you could have SMN take turns using garland to Volt strike skilchains.

It's all about setups if you want a certain job to shine just throwing SMN in the middle of a DD setup will work as well for a SMN as throwing a DD in the middle of a pet setup. Also, haste II is valuable for all DD, and support other than BLU and GEO. Tanks will appreciate flash 2 timers lower, and reprisal in other tank situations. WHM love haste II. Etc. Ifrit's favor and Ramuh's favor is really good for BLU also and if you skip haste II can offer crystal blessing, or crimson howl, or enthunder/endrain, so that if you are thrown in the middle of a DD setup, you can help them do their job better and add support dps.

It's all about whatever works best for the fight at hand. Putting a job in a fight that it struggles in is just a detriment. The frog has huge magic DT, so Summoner's damage is much lower. Your setup probably works, but still more risky than the standard setup, and a huge chance of pulling aggro due to the gigantic chunk of volatile enmity Ramuh is going to pull trying to do that many Volt Strikes in 5 seconds (combine that with potential +pet enmity on blood pact gears). Garland is even slower, and I hope you're not expecting everyone to have Nirvana, because a REM party of any other job would melt it even faster.

It's like trying to kill Albumen with a melee setup. Sure, you could do it, but having to deal with the Counter and everything else when you could just nuke it is just making it harder for yourself. There's a lot of comparisons like this that could be done, but hopefully that makes the point. I certainly have not seen a mage setup try to farm the frog.

Ever since gravity zerg strat are discovered I've done enough runs for close to 50k hallmarks. Out of all of the runs that I've tanked, hammer only happened when 1) When I just started and didn't know the range of hammer and used provoke or kited it to the middle. 2) When someone TAed another DD and I didn't know he was planning to do so.

In past 30+ run or so I haven't seen one single hammer, including the run with WAR bolster mighty strike. I would say the chance of wipe is incredibly low and when building a pt it's not worth it to consider the chance of wiping and sacrifice DPS.

With apogee, that's <1 minute.

Why are you using Apogee on Volt Strike in a DD party. :(

Because the 4 volt strikes put me at about 20% of parse in damage?

Even though using it on buffs at the start (Shiva, Ifrit) would add so much more damage than a Volt Strike from your DDs, and allow you to keep a nice favor up for the entire fight?

Yeah... I would not do that personally. Also, 20% damage sounds odd with that fast of a kill and only 3 4 Volt Strikes.